It’s early in the evening on a Tuesday, and Gabriel Rucker is in a winning mood. The chef and restaurateur, who first gained national attention in 2007 for his restaurant Le Pigeon in Portland, Ore., is this year’s recipient of the James Beard Foundation’s Rising Star Chef of the Year award, an honor reserved for chefs under 30. His work at Le Pigeon draws from classic technique, the ample larder of Oregon’s Willamette Valley and the character of Portland itself — equal parts divine and dingy, local and wild. Rucker’s latest venture, Little Bird, opened in late 2010 and is more of a classic bistro in style and setting, with a fascinating cocktail list, cheap beer selections and strokes of clever embedded throughout the menu; think enormous marrow bones with balsamic vinegar onions presented à la Fred Flinstone, or a sorbet and ice cream course served in pastel miniature egg cartons.

Rucker also manages to find joy from sources other than his two packed, well-reviewed restaurants and national accolades. “There was a huge Giants game earlier today,” he says by way of introduction, “and my wife taped it for me.” After a day spent prepping in the kitchen for the week ahead, The Moment caught up with Rucker in a noisy, industrial-chic bar on the Portland riverfront.

Q.

In your James Beard Award acceptance speech, you thanked your parents for not pushing you into college. Care to elaborate?

A.

I actually did go to college: Santa Rosa Junior College. My first day was English and history, and I liked that, but on the second day it was math — and I said to myself, “There’s no way I’m going do this.” So I went to the college adviser, and he told me I would be more suited to a vocational program. I pointed my finger at the cooking one.

And that’s it? That’s the story of Gabriel Rucker, James Beard Award-winning chef?

Haha, not entirely. I mean … my mom is a schoolteacher with a master’s from Berkeley, and Dad was a little more wild. I messed up a lot when I was a kid, and they knew it, they’d seen it all before. My first real job in food was at a bagel place; I was in high school, and I would go out all night in San Francisco, take ecstasy and go to raves, then come back to Napa and make bagels for seven hours. You can print that. The place was called Kirk and Glotzers New York Bagels. They’ve been out of business for a long time, but it was my favorite job I’ve ever had in my entire life.Are you back in Napa often? Where do you eat when you’re home?

Bistro Jeanty. When we first opened Le Pigeon and I started taking chances, I borrowed a lot of ideas from them. They’re my favorite restaurant on the planet. Also, another place called Bouchon, in Yountville. I’d love to go back to the French Laundry, but I can’t get in.

Maybe you could now?

I don’t mean to say “I can’t get in”, but you know what I mean. Though, honestly? My first stop back home is always In-N-Out Burger. I once flew home to Portland with 25 burgers on the plane. I ate three of them in-flight and had the rest throughout the baseball playoffs.

In some ways, the “Rising Star” part of your James Beard award is misleading. For starters, you’ve been nominated for it several times prior to winning; yours is a kind of endless rise. And Le Pigeon has been reviewed and revered nationally for years now. Do you feel that “rising” is an apt description? Is it a kind of code word for “Come to New York, kid”?

I just turned 30. In the cooking world, when you’re under 30, they focus on age. To me, winning that award — that specific award — feels like a vote of confidence that I’m going to have an impact on the industry in the future. But I can tell you, that impact will be here, in Portland. At the end of the day, I’m blessed to have two restaurants that make 92 percent of the people who eat at them happy.

And the other 8 percent?

Oh, 8 percent of people hate everything all the time. There’s nothing you can do about them. But no, to answer your question, I don’t want to go to New York, or anywhere else for that matter. Can you imagine being one of those people with restaurants all over the place, like Todd English or someone? Do you think he gets to sit down and watch baseball at night with his wife? [He gestures toward his pregnant wife, Hannah, who is seated next to him.] There are more important things in my life than cooking food, and two of them are sitting right next to me.

Your newest restaurant, Little Bird, is outwardly more traditional than Le Pigeon, and yet Little Bird’s menu has these studied juxtapositions. It feels very unpretentious, which others have called “primal,” but then out come these precious, dainty desserts.

If there’s one thing I want printed in this interview, it’s that I take literally no credit for Little Bird. Little Bird is four people: Lauren Fortgang, Andrew Fortgang, Erik Van Kley and Su-Lin Pino. Any time you interview me, you’re going to get props on who I’m working with, and I know that every chef will say that, but I mean it, my sous chefs have been with me since Day 1. Our styles have developed together. Erik Van Kley, the chef de cuisine at Little Bird, is a more fundamentally sound cook than I am, and there is no one else in my business I have more respect for. The desserts at Little Bird belong 100 percent to Lauren Fortgang.

But say I’m in Portland for one night. Should I go to Little Bird or Le Pigeon?

Oh, Le Pigeon, for sure. My staff would tell you the same thing. It’s been there for five years; our process is so much more exact.

You serve a lot of offal at your restaurants, and have done so for quite some time. Is there any cut you personally cannot stand or would never serve?

I can’t cook kidneys — especially veal kidneys — the way that I want to. It’s like David Blaine, man; I haven’t figured out the trick.

That said, right now it’s 7 p.m. on a Tuesday, and you’ve been prepping all day — what’s coming this weekend?

Oh. man. O.K., well, you know that thing where you cut a hole in a piece of bread and fill it with an egg? I always heard it called “Toad in the Hole,” but there are a bunch of names for it. …

“Eggy in a Bready,” “Hen’s Nest,” etc. …

Right! So we took that concept and messed with it, made it ours. We’re doing a house-made brioche, toasted in foie gras fat and cut with a little hole in the middle. Spinach and artichoke dip with foie gras fat goes in the hole, with a piece of seared foie gras on top. Then add artichoke cooked sous-vide on top of that, and touch up the plate with a lemon juice gastrique and more reduced foie gras fat.

It’s funny, because I don’t think goose liver fat, or beef cheeks, which you also serve, are what most people think of when they envision dining in Portland. This city has this very crunchy, granola kind of vegetarian reputation.

Yeah, but there’s nothing wrong with that. I’ll do anything for anyone, and I respect people who choose to dine out with severe allergies. Onion and garlic allergies are the hardest, and advance notice helps, but vegan, gluten-free — we will always do everything we can to accommodate people. We’ve taken “substitutions politely declined” off our menus.

What’s the worst thing you’ve ever made?

Macaroni and cheese out of a box. I was a new chef, and I thought I needed to put salt in the water — to be innovative and take chances with every step of every last thing I was doing. But they already put so much salt in those boxes. I don’t know, it was 3 in the morning, I had just gotten home from the bar, and, man, I was wrong.